


Plans

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, POV Skye (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Unresolved Sexual Tension, post-episode 2x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye makes Coulson talk about the future.</p>
<p>(Post-2x05 hopefulness and fluff)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plans

She finds him in the kitchen, uncharacteristically bent over the fridge door, as she is going back upstairs, laptop in her hand.

"I thought you had bailed on me," she says.

"I got hungry."

Skye watches him roam through the leftovers.

"You didn't get to finish your dinner with Raina," she comments.

Coulson makes an almost snorting sound at that. Yeah, Skye guesses a date with Raina is enough to make anyone lose the appetite – or at least postpone it.

"These?" Coulson asks, showing her a box of Chinese leftovers.

"Mack's and Trip's. Two days ago. We're probably safe."

"Will they mind?"

Skye shakes her head.

"Beer?" he asks, grabbing a couple of bottles.

"That's Hunter's, actually I don't think he'll like it if –"

Coulson shuts the fridge door, completely unpreocuppied about what Lance Hunter might think of them drinking his precious beer. Skye smiles. She likes this.

 

 

"This is awful," Coulson comments, but he shoves more re-heated noodles into his mouth.

"It pretty much is," Skye agrees, examining what could be a piece of cabbagge between her chopsticks or... something else.

This is companionable and Skye would say that she has missed it but she doesn't remember ever spending the night in Coulson's office sitting on the floor and eating Chinese food. This might be progress, she thinks. Though it's been so long, she doesn't know what progress is or where they should be heading. She is just happy to be here tonight, in this particular moment.

 

 

The whole night talking. Discussing. Gathering their strength for the upcoming battle. The whole night comparing notes, because they hadn't had the chance to so far. Coulson should kick himself for it, Skye is thinking, because this is much easier when thw two of them are together, instead of just being Skye working at her laptop alone for months, fixating on these symbols she didn't know where they come from. They talk about details: the detail progression of what Coulson calls his condition, but Skye doesn't like that word. The details of what will happen, what he wants to happen if it gets worse. Skye doesn't like any of those words, but she wants him to keep on talking anyway.

She pops down for a moment to welcome Simmons – she is not completely hopeless. But for the rest it feels very much like they could be locked in Coulson's office until the end of the world, figuring things out. 

 

 

"It would make sense," Skye is saying, getting a bit into it. "As a way to call them back, genetically. So even if the race was scattered for like a thousand years –"

"They could find a way back home," Coulson finishes. He looks down at one of the pictures. Not a nice theory, Skye realizes, telling him his body is being used like this. "Very science fiction."

"Our lives are a bit sci-fi right now," Skye says, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "With you telling me I'm an alien."

Coulson touches his tie. "Perhaps I should have put it differently."

"You think?" she says. But she is not angry about the forms, not anymore. She is worried and freaked out from here to the next state, but not angry. "It was the first I heard of it – but I guess you had been thinking about that possibility for a long time."

"You weren't conscious when I injected you with the GH drug. But I saw what happened. It was like your body struggled but finally accepted the drug, _assimilating_. That's the first time I thought about it."

Skye had tried not to think back on those days too much. She wasn't conscious and it feels weird to consider what everyone else was doing around her. With everything that happened after, Ward, the fall of SHIELD, she didn't have time to reflect on the _before_.

"Well, you are going to have to give me a bit more time."

He nods.

 

 

From his office the Playground sounds eerily silent at this hour (what time is it, anyway, Skye doesn't feel like checking, it's just late, they are here). For some reason it sounds like everything they say are whispers even if they are talking at a normal volume.

"You said you weren't going to lie to me anymore," she is saying.

Coulson wraps his arm around his knee, pulling against his chest. His gaze maybe drops for an imperceptible moment, Skye can't tell.

"I haven't," he says.

"You said you were fine."

"I'm fine."

" _You're not._ "

"Skye."

She shakes her head. "You just told me that it has been getting worse. More frequent."

He holds her gaze. He doesn't have anything to say to that. She knows he is very pessimistic about it, even if he doesn't spell it out for her. From everything he has told her tonight – and there were parts that were quite difficult to stomach, and she was glad for the privacy and Coulson's tact – it feels like he didn't have much faith in finding a way to fight his condition. Which is, and Skye is very sorry to have to use adult words, but it's utter shit.

 

 

The whole night going through theories, through every photographs, through the not-really-helpful input from Rising Tide code breakers. Coulson confessing he didn't want too think too hard about what it all could mean. Confessing thinking too hard felt dangerous. Felt like he was giving into it. Skye confessing she has been thinking about it way too hard, obsessing over the writing. Feeling like if she could immerse in it completely she might make sense of it. Confessing how sometimes she even dreamed of the symbols, tried to solve the puzzle in her sleep not knowing she was one of the pieces. Confessions, theories. Theories, theories, questions. At some point they are just talking.

"So there's this _Star Trek_ episode–"

"Skye," he cuts her off but he is smiling brightly at her. Skye has the feeling that he hasn't smiled at her _in years_ , which is inaccurate. But well, truth, real truth can be inaccurate.

 

 

"They are deeper," Coulson says.

"What?"

"The carvings," he explains, not looking at the wall, throwing one of the earlier photographs in front of Skye. "I keep using more and more force on the wall. It's – it's going fast. That's why."

It's her the one looking over her shoulder to the carved wall. She thinks that she couldn't have told from the photographs, if the writing was getting deeper. They have already discussed why it needs to be carved. The writing on the Obelisk had looked like braille to her, maybe that was the connection. It has to have relief to be understood. Understood by whom, through what, Skye doesn't know.

She shifts on her spot on the floor, gets a little closer to Coulson.

"It's your body, and I know you need to make those plans and why but... it's very heavy."

"I didn't want to have to tell you about this," he says. "Didn't want to upset you."

"Just like you didn't want to rattle me?"

He drops his gaze.

"You are right, I _need_ to make plans. Not just for me. For everybody's security."

She can't think like that. Coulson is Coulson. She can't imagine him being a threat. He is the least threatening person she has known. When Ward started going on about "something" taking over Garrett her stomach turned. That something like that might happen to Coulson of all people – yeah, it had an effect. It kind of accelrated things, put them in perspective. The last few months have been about missing her connection to Coulson, not examining what the connection really meant. Ward's words reminded her.

"You should also make other kinds of plans," Skye says. "The kind that doesn't involve May shooting you."

"What do you mean?"

He narrows his eyes at her but he is curious. Which is good. Curiosity can get him thinking about other stuff. Skye can work with curious.

"Plans for the future. Think about something you would do when we find a way to help you."

"If."

" _When_ ," she repeats. "I used to do that all the time in the orphanage and with my foster homes. If I was going through a rough time I would focus on one thing I wanted to do when it all passed. I would say: _hey, when things get better, I'm going to get an ice cream_. It's a silly example but you get it. I mean, I know it was a form of escape, but it actually helped."

"You and I are wired differently," he says.

Skye thinks he's alluding to the possibility of her being an alien again but then she realizes that's not it. 

"What do you mean?"

"In my job... I wasn't taught to fight. Not sure I know how."

"This," Skye says, pointing at the writing on the wall. "That's not your job. That's you life."

"Same thing."

"Not really."

 

 

"I don't feel it, you know."

"What?" Coulson asks.

" _Alien_."

He holds her gaze. "Maybe it's not supposed to feel in any special way."

She touches her own knee, runs her hand down her own leg, while Coulson watches the gesture with curiosity. If she thinks about it like that – about her body not being of this world, about her body not reacting in the same way Coulson's has to the alien drug – she feels a bit removed from it. She gets this idea that it might stop obeying her desires any moment now. It makes her remember those times when she was quite little and she got angry or freaked out and she felt like her body was just something she was trapped inside of, not truly hers. But it has been a long, long time since she last felt like that.

"I guess you are right," she says, getting a bit existential about the whole thing. "I feel human but how the hell do I know how other people feel. You can't know how it is, inside of another person. Like, how do _you_ feel, if you think about it?"

While thinking about it he scratches his shoulder a bit. He looks kind of itchy and wound up these days. Now Skye understands why. Now she understands many things. More than she wanted to.

"If I think about it? Right now? Not quite human," Coulson says. "Not quite me."

She gives him a sympathetic smile.

"In any case that's what Ward said about Garrett," he tells her. "That he wasn't himself. Something had taken over."

"And that freaked you out? Coulson, I know I'm the last person to speak here but – maybe you shouldn't take life advice from a Nazi. As general rule."

"I should have thought about it like that."

"That's what I tell myself every time I – yeah."

Ward said they had something in common. It's hard to get past that. She used to think that as well. That's what she liked about him, why she liked him. Other people look for opposites, Skye has always been attracted to people she felt were like her. She's no psychologist but she thinks there's an easy explanation for that.

 

 

The whole night locked in the Director's office talking about everything they didn't have the chance to talk about during all these months. The new teammates, SHIELD's new direction, Fitz, the new base. They even talk about Lola. 

They even talk about Donnie Gill.

Talking like they are dangerously running out of time.

 

 

It's so late. Skye feels this might be the perfect moment. It's the right moment just at the edge of morning when Skye can't think of anything other than _Why not?_ because they both need something to look forward.

"Hey. Do you want to grab dinner?" she asks.

Coulson throws a glance to the empty boxes of food. "I thought –"

"No. I don't mean now. I mean afterwards."

"Afterwards?"

"After we've stopped my father," she explains. But that's not the important bit. " _And_ after we find a way to stop whatever is happening to you."

"Dinner?"

"Yes. Maybe I can't propose somewhere as nice as Raina did but –"

"The company will be a lot better," he adds, smiling. Maybe it's a bit flirty, which is good. Very good.

"Hopefully."

Coulson makes a face that means he's pressing PAUSE on the conversation for a moment.

"Skye...? Do you know what you are saying here?" he asks. 

She raises an eyebrow. " _Coulson_. Have I ever not known what I'm saying?"

He doesn't need to think about that.

"No."

"I know what I'm asking."

"Have you thought about... _dinner_ before?" he asks.

"Well, not lately, obviously, with you acting the way you've been acting. I didn't think it was on the cards. But yes, sometimes I thought about dinner. Other times I was a bit confused. And I was afraid you'd think dinner was a really bad idea and you hated me for it."

"Okay," he tells her.

"Really?"

Coulson nods. "Dinner. Maybe we can get _ice cream_ too."

Skye grins at that.

 

 

He looks troubled even in his sleep – which is very Coulson-like, she thinks. Deep lines on his forehead and the impression that he somehow has to keep wound up even when unconscious. Well, that makes sense, she guesses.

Morning is already tapping at the windows, but it's a dark window, gray, drizzling. Coulson fell asleep across the photographs, a couple of minutes ago. Skye wouldn't want him to stay in that position for long, he is going to hurt himself. 

She wraps her fingers around his shoulder and shakes him gently.

He lets out a noise of complain before opening his eyes, staring right at Skye, who was staring right at his face.

"Sorry," she says, a bit awkwarly. "You – _yeah_."

Coulson gives her a slow, early morning smile. He must be a bit sleepy just yet, there's no way Coulson would look at her like this in normal circusmtances. Is there? Her mind is already making plans for when things get better and she might get to see this face again, in a very different context.

"How long have I been out?" he asks.

Skye shakes her head. "Not long."

He makes a pleased noise, considering the hand on his shoulder. Skye is not sure why she hasn't taken it away yet. He lifts his fingers to brush the back of Skye's hand. Maybe he wasn't just being polite accepting their conversation around "dinner".

The moment ends quickly, Coulson sits up and Skye lets her hand drop from his shoulder. The moment ends but it was definitely there.

She stands up and walks up to the carved wall, stretching her legs a bit in the process. She wants to let Coulson have a moment to properly wake up without her watching his every move like a freak. Which is ironic, because he's the one who was monitoring her. 

She starts tracing the straight lines with her index. The frustration she felt when looking at pictures of this is gone. Touching the carving itself is somehow soothing, in a weird way.

"Does it help?" Coulson asks, looking at al her from the floor. "Touching it."

"I don't know. Maybe. You?"

He gives the wall a fearful look.

"I don't even like looking at it," he says.

"Don't be afraid, come here."

He purses his lips for a moment, like he's thinking of a way to say "no". But then he stands up.

She takes his hand in hers, pressing down on his knuckles so that he'll extend his fingers. She leads him to the symbols – a particular one with a shape Skye finds insterestingm two small circles next to each other, carved quite deeply by Coulson's hand.

He hesitates, still scared, but he lets himself be drawn by Skye's hand.

She presses his fingers against the writing.

"Can you feel this?" she asks.

They are so close that Skye can actually hear how Coulson swallows, the dryness in his mouth she listens to.

"Yes," he replies.

Yes. He feels it too.


End file.
